SEATTLE — A 22-year-old Seattle man was sentenced Tuesday to 4 years in jail after being arrested whereas attempting to board a flight to hitch the Islamic State group final yr.
Elvin Hunter Bgorn Williams was arrested at Seattle-Tacoma Worldwide Airport as he checked in for a flight to Cairo and later pleaded responsible to 1 depend of offering help to a overseas terrorist group.
U.S. District Decide John C. Coughenour imposed a four-year sentence to be adopted by 15 years of supervised launch. It was far beneath the 15-year jail time period sought by prosecutors; the decide cited Williams’ “historical past of psychological well being difficulties,” in accordance with a information launch from the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace in Seattle.
“Mr. Williams persevered in his plans to hitch a terrorist group and commit acts of violence, regardless of intervention from his household, his college, members of his mosque, and from the FBI,” U.S. Legal professional Nick Brown mentioned. “Certainly, he repeatedly said his intention to commit an act of terror right here at house if he couldn’t journey abroad. …It will likely be critically vital that he be carefully supervised after he’s launched from jail.”
Williams first got here to the FBI’s consideration when he was 16, after directors at his highschool reported that he was telling others he needed to hitch ISIS, prosecutors alleged. Williams additionally mentioned that the deadly terrorist assault on an Ariana Grande live performance in England in 2017 was justified by the way in which the singer dressed, the grievance mentioned.
On the time, his mom informed investigators that Williams had been kicked off social media for his pro-Islamic State posts and that she reduce off the web service at their house to stop him from accessing extremist web sites.
Members of a Seattle-area mosque tried to deradicalize Williams, serving to him with housing, meals and tuition for a semester of school. In addition they gave him a cellphone and a laptop computer in hopes he would use them to discover a job, the grievance mentioned.
However after a member of the mosque in 2020 noticed Williams utilizing his telephone to take a look at extremist movies, they demanded it again, discovered further violent movies and bomb-making directions, and reported him to the FBI.
